ABHIJIT PARAMESWARAN

Title: Temperature compensation and the Drosophila clock

Host Institution: University of Leicester
Supervisor: Prof Charalambos Kyriacou
Secondment: Muenster University for 4 months to take use real-time luciferase monitoring in cultured isolated brains.

 

Objectives: To discover whether circadian temperature compensation, the property of maintaining ~24 h period at different physiological temperatures, is a cell autonomous biochemical mechanism or an emerging property of the circadian neuronal network. We will use novel tools that we will generate to investigate which clock neurons are responsible for encoding temperature compensation, a cardinal property for any circadian clock.

About me:  I hail from Peringode, a beautiful little village in the heart of Kerala, India. I was fortunate enough to join one of the premier research institutes for basic research in India, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Thiruvananthapuram. During my summer internships, I had worked on the role of microRNAs in lactogenic differentiation of murine mammary epithelial stem cells and in drug resistant epileptogenesis in human mesial temporal lob. My master thesis was to decipher the role of miR-184 in the growth and development of Drosophila melanogaster. Life at IISER offered me an opportunity to understand the power of interdisciplinary research as a path to elucidate scientific problems. Nothing has been as enigmatic to me as the structure and function of the brain. I am fascinated to learn more about the genetics underlying the precise control of intricate neuronal networks.

In CINCHRON, I will be working on the neurogenetics of temperature compensation in Drosophila circadian clock. Being part of an extensive research network, I dream of experiencing a global exchange of ideas that would widen our knowledge about chronobiology.